Wizard's Duel
by Shadow's Interceptor
Summary: An encounter between two young wizards results in a short practice duel.  Written using a slightly different understanding of Magic the Gathering.


_When I first started to play magic I was told a slightly different understanding of the game- a personal interpretation, not the actual one put forth by Magic the Gathering. The players represent wizards, not planeswalkers, and as wizards we can summon and control these creatures. I've always had a particular fondness for this view. This story was the answer to a personal challenge issued to me by a good friend of mine who did not believe that it would be possible to write a story about Magic using the older understanding. _

_And to all you who are waiting for an update on my other stories, in my defense I had this one written LONG before any of my others. I just found it as I was going through my documents one day and thought I should post this somewhere._

_I most certainly do no own Magic: The Gathering. Nor do I make any money from this fanfiction. _

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Lana tilted her head back as she inhaled, searching for the inner calm and the connection that came with it. _Don't search_, she could almost hear her mentor Darien growl, _open yourself to it and it will find you_. She relaxed both her mind and body. As her head slowly lowered, she felt the beginnings of the connection. By the time her chin hit her chest, the connection was established and she could feel the pulse of white mana within her. She wasn't very deep, but that was always how battles started, she knew her opponent could hardly be any deeper than she was in such a short space of time.

Her opponent drew from the deck of summon cards beside him. He had seemed like a kind man, not much older than she was. They had met on the road, and after establishing each other as young wizards, he challenged her to a practice dual. "There aren't many white wizards where I come from, so my deck and I don't have much experience with them." He had told her. She had not had much experience against green wizards and their decks either, so both young wizards counted their meeting as a win-win scenario. Because his eyes were closed, she surmised that he had not gone deep enough into his connection to summon the hand his deck had dealt him.

She drew her hand slowly, feeling herself become more and more strained with each summon card she drew. At seven, she stopped. She had to. If she tried to hold any more of the active summon cards, her concentration would break and the resulting power snap could easily send her into a coma, or even kill her. Seven cards was the limit for any wizard, it was all their minds were able to take at one time. She glanced at her hand, two Kjeldoran Outriders, a Kjeldoran Home Guard, a Kjeldoran Elite Guard, Scars of the Veteran, Field Marshal, and Darien King of Kjeldor. Lana smiled at the summon card for Darien. Even though she was not deep enough into her connection to summon him so early in the battle, Darien knew that when he showed up in the first hand it gave her confidence, knowing that she could summon him as soon as possible to ask for his advice.

As she looked over her hand, the two Kjeldorian Outriders trembled and became warm to the touch. That signaled that she was now in connection with enough white mana to summon at least one of them. While she concentrated on bringing one of the Outriders to the field, a shimmer appeared ahead of her opponent. The shimmer solidified, becoming a Promised Kannushi. The creature swayed a bit, off balance and disoriented after its summoning. Knowing that she did not have to worry about that creature right now, Lana continued her summoning of the Outrider while her opponent was recovering.

The Outrider leaped from the frosty mist, Lana's trademark summoning signal, and stumbled on the landing. His mount, a broad muzzled hound, turned its head and whined, as if to apologize to its rider about the rough entrance. Lana would have smiled at the touching scene, but she was lightheaded from mana loss and would not be able to concentrate until this passed. Rather than take advantage of her condition, the green wizard concentrated on summoning another creature, this time a Petalmane Baku.

When Lana was able to focus, she drew another card. No-Dachi, a fine sword that had helped her win quite a few duels. The No-Dachi and Field Marshal were also warm and trembling, along with the other Outrider card. She summoned the Kjeldorian Outrider and was pleased to find that she was not so lightheaded this time. Her connection had become deeper after the first summoning and she had not used it all up on the second. The second Outrider was virtually identical to the first, save that his hound had a white blaze on its forehead.

"Ress, attack!" she yelled to the first Outrider.

"Aye, milady," Ress yelled back, already digging his heels into his mount. The hound leaped over the startled Petalmane Baku and slammed into the protective barrier surrounding the green wizard. The barrier flashed, a sure sign that it had taken damage. Satisfied, Ress swung his hound around, and galloped back towards Lana. The attack had taken place too fast for the green wizard to think to order one of his creatures to block it. But in spite of the attack on his barrier, the green wizard managed to keep his concentration and before Ress was halfway across the battlefield a new creature shimmered and solidified. The creature spread across the battlefield in a tangled knot of vines. One of its mouths snapped at Ress's hound as it ran past, narrowly missing the animal's tail.

"Gnarled Mass," Ress growled to Ross, the other Outrider and Ress' twin brother. The brothers did not need their hounds' whimperings to know that they would not be able to defeat that beast without some serious help. Lana recognized the brother's plight and after drawing another card, hastily summoned their Field Marshal, who was consequently called Marshal. The Outriders whooped with joy when Marshal staggered from a frosty mist.

"Send us out Lana!" Ross bellowed, "Send us both out!" Trusting the Outrider's experience, Lana gave them the okay to charge.

Seeing the hollering Outriders charge, the green wizard screamed at his creatures. The Gnarled Mass raced for Ress, while the Promised Kannushi moved to intercept Ross's charge closer to his master. Seeing what the green wizard was planning, Lana yelled, "Ress, wait till Ross kills that!" Ress pulled up his hound, while Ross drove his faster. Ross reached the Promised Kannushi just as the Gnarled Mass reached his brother. With a wild whoop Ross swept off the other creature's head. The Promised Kannushi disappeared with a flash and a cracking sound, and the effect of its dying spell, the same one that every single creature possessed, transported Ross away from its master, back to Lana's side of the field. Upon seeing his brother transported, Ress let out a feral yell and sent his hound bounding straight into the middle of the Gnarled Mass. The Gnarled Mass thrashed and bit the Outrider inside of it, and soon both hound and rider were covered in fatal wounds. But Ress and his hound had left their mark, galvanized by the presence of their Field Commander they had fought like demons and torn the Gnarled Mass apart from the inside. Both creatures disappeared with a crack and a flash.

Lana's throat tightened as the summoning card for the Kjeldorian Outrider went colder than snow. Darien and many other soldiers had told her that the pain they felt from their injuries vanished as soon as they disappeared and did not return when they were re-summoned, whether they were summoned in or out of battle. But it still grieved her to see one of them die, even though she knew they weren't really dead. She placed the summon card in her belt pouch, her "graveyard" for her fallen cards.

Gritting her teeth she reached deeper into her connection with the white mana, ignoring the fact that her opponent was summoning a new creature. When the Kjeldorian Elite and Home Guards became warm and trembled, she called one to the field. The Elite Guard's stumble coming out of the frost mist turned into a fall when the green wizard's Petalmane Baku brushed past him and crashed into Lana's barrier. Through her lightheadedness she noticed the barrier flashing and mentally hit herself for not paying attention to the other wizard's creatures. Without orders, no matter how much they wished to, her own army could not block an attacking creature. Lana, like most new wizards, had not yet mastered the multitasking that these duals required and was especially vulnerable to attack while summoning a creature or immediately afterwards if she used a lot of her mana connection in the summoning and suffered the lightheaded "mana loss sickness". To be successful, wizards had to learn to watch their opponents closely while summoning, suffering "mana loss", even giving attack and defend orders, in case their opponent was readying a counterstrike.

Gritting his teeth at his own inability to act without orders, Ross mock charged the Petalmane Baku as it retreated, making it spook slightly. "Ross!" the Field Marshal barked. Ross shrugged and trotted his hound back. The Elite Guard had picked himself up and was glaring after the retreating Baku. "Marshal, Ross, attack," Lana yelled. The green wizard proved to be an efficient multitasker and gave both his creatures the order to defend as he summoned a third.

The Field Marshal's arrow straight course was interrupted by the green wizard's Hana Kami, whose dying spell flashed him right back where he started. Rather than set a straight course, Ross had his hound coming at the green wizard from the side the side that the Petalmane Baku was guarding. He heard the Elite Guard yell, "Hit him hard for me!" before his hound reared up and crashed down on the Baku, breaking its spine. Once transported to Lana's side of the field, the Elite Guard, fully recovered from his summoning, slapped him on the back. Marshal on the other hand glared at him silently. Ross knew he would be getting a talking to after this.

On the green wizard's side of the field, a creature resembling a long limbed wooden skeleton was just recovering from its summoning. Marshal recognized it as a Forked Branch Garami and swore. He and the men could take care of it, especially if Lana ordered the Elite Guard to help, but once destroyed, the Garami had the ability to bring creatures from its master's graveyard to his hand, enabling him to summon them again. A frosty mist appeared on the field. The soldiers watched expectantly as their ally removed itself from the mist. A tall, broad dirt brown stallion encased in battle worn armor stepped out. Although the stallion and his rider were suffering from summoning sickness, they did not show it. Darien King of Kjeldor, surveyed the field and smiled.

Lana ordered Ross to attack alone, and the Elite Guard to assist him. The green wizard allowed the Outrider to attack his barrier, which put Lana instantly on alert. With a triumphant grin, the green wizard used a spell, Kodama's Might, to augment the Forked Branch Garami's power and ordered it to attack. Lana looked to Darien, he looked back, "What is your call?" She stared at the charging creature. "Stand aside," she said. Darien nodded, "Perfect." The soldiers parted and allowed the Garami to hit Lana's barrier at full force. The resulting flash blinded her briefly, but she kept her concentration on summoning No-Dachi. The green wizard yelled happily, as they were having a practice dual their shields were at half power and one more hit would destroy Lana's. But his yell turned into a gasp when Darien raised his sword and six foot soldiers appeared behind him. The green wizard hurridly summoned another Gnarled Mass, but it was too late.

No-Dachi appeared in Darien's hand. "Charge!" Lana yelled. With a primal roar, Darien led the charge, followed by Ross, Marshal, and the Elite Guard. Behind them, the foot soldiers ran, howling their war cry. Darien smashed through the Forked Tree Garami, his stallion carrying him a full eight strides before the creature's dying spell sent him back to Lana's side. The Gnarled Mass intercepted the Field Marshal, but as they were battling, the remaining soldiers fell upon the green wizard's barrier and shattered it. He was thrown back and the Gnarled Mass disappeared before Marshal could strike the final blow.

Though it was an insignificant triumph, Darien insisted that Lana take his stallion on a victory gallop around the field. While she rode, Darien and the others whooped, hollered, bellowed, and roared, the Kjeldoran version of a victory cheer and a tribute to their commander, in this case, her. Only after that was completed did they allow her to see to the green wizard, making sure he was still breathing and had not been injured when he was thrown back.

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_Yeah, it's not even a story really. Just an incident I wanted to see if I could actually write. What do you all think? Would you read a longer story written with this style of Magic being used? Because I kind of have one started … (yeah, that's just what I need, add ANOTHER story to my growing list of stuff I need to finish)_


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